You’ve planned your workout (or your trainer has). You’ve carved out the time to workout. You’ve shown up. You’ve warmed up. Now… comes the Go Time! You want to make the most of your hard earned time and effort, so how do you do that?
Well, this week I’m sending you a few things to consider BEFORE your next 3-2-1 GO!
First… what’s the goal of your workout? If you’re unsure or want to learn how to program a great workout EVERY TIME, you can read my tips on workout effectiveness HERE.
Are you trying to work your skill? If so, slow down and just focus on completing high quality reps.
Are you trying to go fast? If so, push yourself a little quicker in the first round or few minutes and then hang on!
Are you just trying to make it through without dying? (We chuckle, but many days it’s the truth!)
With these preliminary questions in mind, here are a few things you can do to make the most of your time, NOT in the sense of what the workout actually is, but how to get the most out of YOU: your energy and your effort, for your workout:
Set a goal in your mind of what pace you want to go. The game plan may change when you get into it, but at least you are learning what your body can handle.
Get a little technical. How long does it really take for you to do a kettlebell swing? Let’s say 2 seconds. So if you need to do 20 kettlebell swings, technically it would take you 40 seconds.
BUT, if by swing #15 you feel your heart rate rise to the point of no return (called “red lining”), you’ll want to stop before you get to swing #15. Probably swing #12 or #13 and then catch your breath. Your heartrate will rise some as your body readjusts oxygen/carbon dioxide levels, and then drop.
The best way to get yourself working again and not stuck in rest land is to count your breaths. Set in your mind to do, say 8 of them, and then return to your swings, regardless of the way you feel. (Unfortunately I’ve found out the hard way that if you want to get the most out of your workout, you’ll have to return to your set before you really want to!)
While we’re on the subject of heartrate, if you aren’t familiar with the phrase “red lining”, let me share it with you… You might have experienced it yourself or seen it in some unfortunate soul during a race or competition. Red lining happens when you go at a pace early in your workout that your body can’t handle yet. It is when the intensity of your exercise soars up quickly causing your heartrate to shoot up and it won’t drop back down (at least not very quickly). You basically go out too fast at the beginning, and by the third minute, you’re gasping for air. You know you’re in trouble because that finish line or clock is not coming anytime soon.
Yikes! You don’t want to go there. It’s like walking to school in your 80’s hairdo and it rains on you. You’re basically ruined for the day. You’re not getting those bangs back.
So even though you can count your breaths before returning, breaking your sets up early and often will help elevate the red lining catastrophe. But the ability to keep that heartrate JUST BELOW THE RED LINE is where the experienced athletes excel. If you can condition yourself to push your intensity just enough, so you’re working hard but not red-lining- that is true mastery of your effort.
Shifting gears, What do you do when your muscles start to hurt? Just like your 3-year old who wants that toy and just won’t stop telling you over and over and over again about what they want. Their volume escalates the longer you ignore them. Even when you address them with a negative, they remain undaunted. Yes, that muscle group. It’s starts with a whisper and jumps to a SHOUT in just a few reps.
You have to focus on something else to finish. That muscle group won’t go away (sorry, your 3-year old won’t either), BUT, you can still accomplish what you started if you focus on what’s ahead. So, if you’re holding a position: like a wall sit or a plank, focus on your BREATHING. Tell yourself “Inhale. Exhale.” I know it sounds a little rudimentary, but when you’re in that moment, SHORT, BRIEF and DIRECT words are the best.
Find one phrase that works for you. When I get tired with kettlebell swings, I focus on my hips. When I tire with the pull up, I focus on the kip. With walking lunges I use “Keep Your Head Level”. I have a different phrase for each movement I do, and it keeps me focused on what I need to do in order to finish.
Find a phrase for each movement you’re on and use that as a mantra to get through the reps.
Another tip: Focus on the number of reps you have until your next break. Count down in your brain and give yourself a light at the end of the tunnel to focus on. This allows you to take that intensity up and test the uncomfortable space just beneath the red line.
Lastly, understand the trade off between muscle fatigue and number of reps. Let’s say you have 30 Handstand Push Ups to do. You decide beforehand to break them into 3 sets of 10 because you’ve done this before and know you can do those.
Your first set goes well.
However, on your second set, in rep 4 you feel that tricep burn and know 10 just isn’t going to happen.
You have a choice to make.
You can press on and try to squeeze them out, hanging out upside down in a handstand to rest, OR you can come down, shake it out, rest, and break the remaining number into smaller sets.
The trade-off is when you push into longer sets than you can maintain, and your muscles reach fatigue and cannot do the movement any more. This can happen with bench (ring) dips, any of the push ups, and pretty much any strength movement using body weight. Since you can’t scale down your own body weight like you can a barbell or dumbbells, you have to figure out how to get through your reps. Sometimes your sets go from 10… to ones or twos. When that happens, your workout efficiency slows to a crawl.
If you reach this point, disappointingly you can’t really fix this in your current workout. The only way to correct this is to understand on the front end what could happen and plan shorter sets.
For example, if the workout calls for 50 reps or more in one chunk and the best you’ve ever done is 10 unbroken, start with half that much and work into longer sets the closer you get to 50.
The more you test your ability to do movements, understand what it feels like as your heart rate reaches redline, and learn how to focus through muscle burn, you’ll be able to produce the workout result you want. Improvement in efficiency, increased calorie burn, and overall greater fitness.
Keep moving!
Priscilla
p.s. Today’s letter is just to get you thinking about strategy in your next workout. Understanding you is really important to making progress. You’re worth the investment! If you need a little guidance, come chat with me and I can point you in the right direction. Email me at: priscilla@bluewavefitocala.com.
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